REVIEW “The Walking Dead” (Pilot Episode)

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

PLOT: When rural Georgia is overrun with a widespread zombie scourge, Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is tasked with finding answers. After sustaining a gunshot wound in the line of duty, Grimes awakes in an abandoned hospital…paperwork littered, lights flickering, bodies scattered about. Immediately heading home to find his wife Laurie and son Carl, Rick meets a man and boy who takes him in, re-bandages, feeds and ultimately tries to explain to Grimes what the hell is going on. The alleged destination of refuge? Atlanta!

REVIEW: You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone ’round these parts who isn’t excited about what Frank Darabont has in store for his new zombie series on AMC, “The Walking Dead.” Remember, Darabont got his start writing horror screenplays (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3, THE BLOB, THE FLY II, etc.)…and you better believe they weren’t simply gigs for hire. You can tell the man fosters the horror genre in a way perhaps no other A-list, Oscar caliber filmmaker has. Ever. And you know what, folks? It’s very evident in the pilot episode of his new series, which he not only directed…but wrote, developed and executive produced. A labor of love this project is, thankfully, and by no coincidence, Darabont found interest in the one television network that isn’t willing to kowtow to the same old rote, uninspired TV formulas that make us opt for watching movies instead. Nope, AMC’s blazing new f*ckin’ trails, their two other original series being “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.” So far, “The Walking Dead” ranks equally, if not superior among them.

We open with officer Rick Grimes (above) vetting a nasty traffic accident, what appears to be anyway. No other humans in sight. Then suddenly, a bedraggled zombie child, about a 12 year old blonde girl…approaches Grimes…half her face masticated to a bloody pulp. She slugs her way forth, foaming, growling. With little choice…Grimes blasts the little girl-zombie plum in the grill. I chronicle this not to spoil anything for you, but to give you an idea of how far Darabont and AMC are willing to push a viewer…to challenge the content on cable TV. Nothing too sanctimonious here…if an undead flesh-fiend happens to inhabit the skin of a child…so be it…that f*cker’s going down with the rest. A touch I absolutely adore!

Now, I’ll do my best to sidestep any major revelations…but it’s worth mentioning Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal), Rick’s police-partner. After the credits roll, we listen to a lengthy conversation between Rick and Shane about the difficulty of marriage and fatherhood. We instantly pick up that these two are extremely close, would take a bullet for one another. As with the bulk of Darabont’s work, this becomes important in recognizing what will no doubt become the strength of the series. Characters. Writing. Story. Darabont is far too smart to embark on a journey of this proportion without giving us people to identify with…people we can care and root for. This isn’t about cheap thrills, gratuitous eye-candy gore and bad horror acting…far from it. Darabont continues to do what he does with Stephen King adaptations…which is work from an honest place of faithful storytelling, deftly measuring plot beats and character motivation as carefully as he does the grueling zombie set-pieces. Suicide, reanimated child murder, killing a loved one who morphed into an undead being…these are weighty subjects in the story that anchor the more grisly and fantastical elements in reality.

Piggybacking on that last notion, the things I really dug about “The Walking Dead” pilot episode were the tone and tempo. Largely absent of campy humor and stilted dialogue, this is an austere piece of work. Just as Darabont did with THE MIST (also starring Laurie Holden and Jeffrey DeMunn), “The Walking Dead” is treated with sincerity…it doesn’t pander to any sort of pop-culture bulls*it, there’s no sad attempt at irony or any kind of snarky sarcasm…there’s no artificial sense of trying to be cool or hip…the type you generally see on TV. No, this plays more like a 70-ish minute feature film…the size and scope, the lavish production, Darabont’s deliberate camera work…all of it drive toward something truly special.

At the end of the day though, the show is about a zombie apocalypse…so you must be wondering how the hell the reanimated corpses are comported. Rest assured horror fans, these bastards are f*ckin’ brutal looking. Advanced as far as makeup and F/X go (what else would you expect from Greg Nicotero and his KNB squad?), but rudimentary in the way they move (slow, with great lassitude), it’s a nice blend of old and new. There’s one particular zombie-woman, or half of her I should say…that is both redolent of the “BRAINS, BRAINS!” zombie in THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and newfangled at the same time (Grimes is more sympathetic this go around). There’s also a grue-filled finale, a smorgasbord of intestines, guts and other unsavory innards on display…the streets teeming with an army of undead ghouls. But…and this feeds into what I was saying about pacing and tempo…Darabont staggers the zombie outbursts and acts of violence in way that keeps them affective. They’re not too frequent or overdone, nor are they too scant or spaced too far out in between. Darabont hits his beats well, using the macabre as backdrop to tell a story. Rick Grimes’ story, and the story of those he encounters.

All in all , “The Walking Dead” is exactly the type of TV show hardened horror heads wanna see. It’s gruesome, visceral, engaging…by most importantly, it’s handled with a palpable care. Never does it cater to base, kitschy, lowest common denominator horror…in fact it’s just the opposite. Just as Daraont does with his feature films, which I assume comes from his long history as a writer, he’s far more concerned with story and character than lame over-the-top thrills and hokey-gags. If I had one qualm, I’d cite the overuse of CG, especially regarding some of the blood and gunshot wounds (it wasn’t bad, but certainly noticeable a time or two). Other than that, I think Frank Darabont and his cast and crew deserve much kudos for crafting what’s going to be one hell of a new TV show!

Rating: 9/10

“The Walking Dead” debuts on AMC 10:00 PM Halloween night.